Talk:Wikimedians for Sustainable Development/Meeting minutes 20200112
Add topicLatest comment: 4 years ago by Ainali
I couldn't listen all the time but please notice that on the chat I think I was not even the only person with doubts about becoming ThemOrg, i recall a comment from somebody else who was less in a hurry. I simply assumed one year warm-up could have been better, but I am happy to go the same way if it works, it just sounds odd to read "people agree". All other people at the call were supporting?--Alexmar983 (talk) 02:56, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
- Oh, maybe I misinterpreted your comment. I thought you were under the impression that it was a requirement to be a user group for a year before becoming a thematic organization, not that you actually wanted to not be one. If that is the case, what are your arguments for not being one, because that was not clear to me at all then? Of the people speaking, I only heard people agreeing in the end. Ainali (talk) 17:08, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
- My argument was that even if on the long term I think all thematic-based UG should be(come) ThemOrg, the requriements and differences are not clear yet woth all these processes. The only ThemOrg as far as I recall when I loooked into it before the ASBS election are the Catalan one (which is a geopolitical product, in the end, very peculiar) and the very strong and solid Medicine UG that evolved to a themOrg soon after.
- It looks a game above avarage, considering the affiliates I see there, but it's difficult to make assumptions in the framework of a long-term planning, two cases make no statistics. I would have assumed, like other UGs, that we wanted to go at a pace we can stand. For example WikiClassics will probably be a UG for at least two years, the time to see if the report and the activities are solid, because for a group of users starting directly as ThemOrg seemed and still seems uncharted territory.
- This is the scenario you can assume looking at WMF from outside. If you have some inside knowledge that applying for a ThemOrg is as easy/simple as for a UG, good to know. Last time I spoke with people from AffCom and Role & eRsposnability group I noticed that I had a much better knowledge sometimes of the scenarios of affiliates than some among them, whch makes me suspect that depending on who is expressing an opinion, big differences of views can emerge. Even on trivial matters I met people sure about rules and requirements that were not written or were disprooved by counterexampales. But such solid background exists only for UGs. You can be lucky, but i like to play it safe when more people are involved.
- So what is WMF expecting from a ThemOrg now? We know what is expected by a UG, in the sense that if somebody say something, we can show if this is in agreement with previous cases, but not in the case of a ThemOrg.
- I can tell what I would have done in the case of other UG to switch to ThemOrg, I would have open a written thread to prove that there is a strong will from the bottom, I think it could help at WMF level to see how people are motivated. Bye.--Alexmar983 (talk) 21:11, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
- It seems to me that you have a somewhat differing view upon what a thematic organization is compared to the one I have. The biggest difference between a user group of our sort and a thematic organization to me is that the latter is a legal person whereas the first is only a loose collection of users. There is also no "path" from one to the other, or even a suggestion that one should be one first before becoming the other. Many user groups will stay as such for all their existence. Rather I see it as that if you are working on a theme and the group is a legal person, you could go for a thematic organization immediately. And I don't see why this would be hard. When we formed Wikimedia Sverige, now a chapter with several employees, it only took us a couple of months of preparations and at the time we did not have the experience the people in our group have now. Are you seeing any downsides with thematic organizations? Ainali (talk) 23:27, 17 January 2020 (UTC)
- I simply collected other people opinions on this matter and so far there is a little bit of "chaos". For example, nobody talked about a legal person ever in my case. Not even once, upon request. Such aspects depends a lot on the legislation. plus maybe on the agreement of WMF. For example before deciding you should find what the agree of WikiMed actually says on this matter, howcan you already start a page for the process of becoming one at this step? Did they register legally then they switched? If it takes few hours and we don't know what other requirements WMF wants or will want, why not start with UG and convert as ThemOrg after one years in few hours, citing the case of WikiMed and being prepared. I was expecting this option to be cited on the minute. Based on the element, this could be safer so far. But again it does not depends on what you or I feel, but on your inside knowledge. I did not say that because I strongly think it's the best option but because it put things in perspective. Are people saying informally in AffCom they are fine with this? Go with it. On a stronger level, in any case I wouldn't even dig into that if i simply had read a report that says that we all agree. Saying "all people but one o two are particularly favorable" probably I would not have noticed.
- Still, we should and will write down in bigger details and a separted thread such vision. It appeared on the draft few days before, a UG was submitted and not approved yet, all looks so compressed. We have no information about a request change during submission. If you vote a logo, this is more important. What are these legal requirements? Why a certain choice of legislation and not another?
- Going to a notary from a wiki environment is not something to decide on a call, wiki means fast but also copperative, as fast as cooperation requires, and you should not expect to be fast in the real word the same way you are with correcting a typo. Everytime you choose a balance of this aspect you make a choice. Are we in a hurry to get some money and we need this asap? it's good to know but there should be a thread that writes down all the elements and specify them. it's not a waste of time, in a general wiki perspective you are sparing the times of people who come after you. I will cite this discussion if they ask me a feedbak to strat with, fair enough but I think that a dedicated and more neutral thread with these pieces of information will be much better. I imagined that's what the call was supposed to do, start to share information. I was expecting more points on this, I read and I discover we all agree more or less that it was a good idea. I am suprised because form my perspective we have no information yet to know if this is a good or bad idea. and if they were said during the call, the part I did not listen because of that jitsi, I am curious to know them.--Alexmar983 (talk) 22:26, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
- We are not going to a notary any time soon. What we discussed on the call was if it was going to be taken off of the table or something to strive for. We have plenty of decisions to make that will be better suited to take on-wiki. But if no one thought it was a good idea, it would be pointless to even start such a subpage here on meta. A first huge decision that will probably take some serious time to research even before we can make any real progress in moving forward is in which country to become a legal entity. And yes, there is some sort of rush if we want to participate in meetings which require an organization (we talked about COP on the call) or if we want to go looking for funding (which we also talked about). Ainali (talk) 11:37, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
- You can strat a page of something even if you have no idea. All of this framework sounds kinda rigid for no strong reason. In any case, the rush is probably pointless if structured with this attitude. Today i found what I was trying to prove and I was suspecting Wikimedia_movement_affiliates/Models, the Typical development time for ThemOrg is 2-3 years. As it should be, it's called good sense. Since this meeting minutes are now linked from the mailing list, I add my position at the time.--Alexmar983 (talk) 21:16, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
- It states the same time for chapters, yet it took us less than four months to start Wikimedia Sverige. Ainali (talk) 21:27, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
- You can strat a page of something even if you have no idea. All of this framework sounds kinda rigid for no strong reason. In any case, the rush is probably pointless if structured with this attitude. Today i found what I was trying to prove and I was suspecting Wikimedia_movement_affiliates/Models, the Typical development time for ThemOrg is 2-3 years. As it should be, it's called good sense. Since this meeting minutes are now linked from the mailing list, I add my position at the time.--Alexmar983 (talk) 21:16, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
- We are not going to a notary any time soon. What we discussed on the call was if it was going to be taken off of the table or something to strive for. We have plenty of decisions to make that will be better suited to take on-wiki. But if no one thought it was a good idea, it would be pointless to even start such a subpage here on meta. A first huge decision that will probably take some serious time to research even before we can make any real progress in moving forward is in which country to become a legal entity. And yes, there is some sort of rush if we want to participate in meetings which require an organization (we talked about COP on the call) or if we want to go looking for funding (which we also talked about). Ainali (talk) 11:37, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
- Going to a notary from a wiki environment is not something to decide on a call, wiki means fast but also copperative, as fast as cooperation requires, and you should not expect to be fast in the real word the same way you are with correcting a typo. Everytime you choose a balance of this aspect you make a choice. Are we in a hurry to get some money and we need this asap? it's good to know but there should be a thread that writes down all the elements and specify them. it's not a waste of time, in a general wiki perspective you are sparing the times of people who come after you. I will cite this discussion if they ask me a feedbak to strat with, fair enough but I think that a dedicated and more neutral thread with these pieces of information will be much better. I imagined that's what the call was supposed to do, start to share information. I was expecting more points on this, I read and I discover we all agree more or less that it was a good idea. I am suprised because form my perspective we have no information yet to know if this is a good or bad idea. and if they were said during the call, the part I did not listen because of that jitsi, I am curious to know them.--Alexmar983 (talk) 22:26, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
- It seems to me that you have a somewhat differing view upon what a thematic organization is compared to the one I have. The biggest difference between a user group of our sort and a thematic organization to me is that the latter is a legal person whereas the first is only a loose collection of users. There is also no "path" from one to the other, or even a suggestion that one should be one first before becoming the other. Many user groups will stay as such for all their existence. Rather I see it as that if you are working on a theme and the group is a legal person, you could go for a thematic organization immediately. And I don't see why this would be hard. When we formed Wikimedia Sverige, now a chapter with several employees, it only took us a couple of months of preparations and at the time we did not have the experience the people in our group have now. Are you seeing any downsides with thematic organizations? Ainali (talk) 23:27, 17 January 2020 (UTC)